Recovery
by TheSupremeShadowOverlord
Summary: This is a few connected short stories after Snakehead about how Alex recovered from his mission and adjusted to normal life. Feel free to leave suggestions on what you want to see. It's mostly angst including (so far) an apathetic job counselor, therapy sessions in a janitor's closet, and meddling karate instructors.
1. Chapter 1

_A/N: This was originally going to be a chapter in a longer story about how Alex recovered after _Snakehead _and if anyone would like to read that, tell me. I just felt like it was a little overdone, and even if I have completely new ideas on it people might still get bored._

_I would just like to say that I have no idea if being a job counselor that jumps from school to school is a real thing, so just go with it._

_And regretfully, I do not own Alex Rider or any other characters from the series._

|~V~|

Louis Faure did not enjoy his job.

At first it had seemed like a good idea; he was helping kids choose what they wanted to be later in life, helping them find their strengths and achieve their dreams.

Of course, he didn't realize that twenty years later he would still be around a bunch of snot nosed, whiny, British high-school children all day long trying to get them to pick a bloody job so they wouldn't fail later in life.

He missed France.

Somehow, he always got stuck with the idiots with the most improbable ideas of what they wanted to be, and had to convince them to "have other plans, just in case". Honestly, not everyone can have _rich_ or _famous_ as a career choice.

So when he received a call in the morning telling him to be at Brookland Comprehensive School in Chelsea by noon, he sighed and grumbled as he pushed all his papers and pamphlets into a briefcase and made his way to another day of dealing with those insufferable annoyances.

By the time he got there is was 11:50 and he made his way to the office to sign in and begin his sessions. Each school would last a couple weeks to get through all the grades, though each student that entered his care was pushed out quicker than the prior. He got bored of them so quickly.

Louis watched the students that had free period enjoyed their various activities. The children playing football would all come to him with dreams of making it to the pros, and he would force a smile and encourage them not to slack off in other areas because they would need a back up plan.

The three girls laughing and sending rude sneers at anyone who dared to come near them would want to be models and actresses, believing that their beauty would get them wherever they needed to go because it had worked thus far. Louis would nod his head in agreement, all the while insisting they try their hand at a few clubs or electives so they had more skill sets.

A boy with thick glasses was reading under the shade of one of the few trees. He might have potential, with good grades and dedication, but Louis felt in his pessimistic soul the owl-eyed boy would have no realistic dreams either and would end up as sad as the rest of his classmates when all hope for a better future was lost.

Whenever his loathing for his job became internal discouragement over the students he was supposed to help, Louis wasn't sure. Maybe it had come first, and was what had made him truly lose all hope in his job.

He had been doing this too long.

As Louis walked through the hallways, he paid no mind to the rush of students around him. In turn, they gave none of their attention to him. At that moment, neither had the slightest affect on the other. If this schools' students were anything like all the others he had been to, that would still be true when he left.

At last he reached the office and a secretary — an attractive woman in her forties — who was working behind the desks told him to wait for the headmaster for a few minutes, so he sat down on one of the many uncomfortable chairs by the office door. After six minutes of constantly glancing at his watch and shifting in the seat like a child waiting to be reprimanded, a man with a balding head in a crumpled suit exited the office.

He gave the tired smile of man who had also worked with children too long and stuck out a hand to Louis. "Ah, you must be Mr. Faure. My name is Henry Bray, I am the headmaster of Brookland Comprehensive School." Bray had thick fingers that wrapped around Louis' smaller hand with a firm grip. Strong handshakes were probably in the job description of headmasters and headmistresses. He gestured for Louis to come inside his office and they sat down in their respective seats.

Bray continued, "I am glad you could make it, we've been concerned that our students don't realize how different the real world is compared to school. Multiple teachers have come to me with fears that students here don't take their work seriously and we were hoping you could help them gain some sense of realism. As a school, it is our job to teach how to survive out in the world once they leave."

Louis found himself nodding along. This was the case with many children. They couldn't see the harshness of the real world, the difficulties that they would have to face. School was a sheltered environment.

After they talked, Bray assigned Louis a room and was told he would be receiving students that needed help according to teachers and that he was simply to talk with them and nudge them in the direction of an achievable career. It was no different than any other school he had visited, and Louis quickly slipped into the lull of talking calmly to the many students that passed through, pointing out their strengths and advising them on jobs that would suit them.

They were all the same, just a string of children with too high of hopes. All until one day, a few minutes after Louis saw off a girl who loved her looks far more than her grades, there was a knock rapped on his temporary door. After a call of "come in" from Louis, a blond boy walked in and looked at him with a blank expression.

Louis simply smiled back, pushing down the distressing feeling growing inside him. Something about the boys' face made him feel nervous, but he couldn't let that interfere with his thoughts or judgement. He had a job to do, no matter how tired he had grown of it.

"Please sit down," Louis chirped. The boy made his way to the dark green chair in front of Louis' desk. The room was so small that they were against opposite walls and still close enough to each other to speak softly. "My name is Mr. Faure, I'm here to help you think about what you want for your future," he continued. He expected the boy to respond with his own name, or perhaps a sarcastic remark, but he remained silent. Louis tried again with a more straightforward approach, "What is your name?"

After a few moments of no answer, Louis began to feel increasingly nervous. What kind of child acted like this? It wasn't rude so much as. . . off. As if he didn't know how to act normally. The boy certainly didn't seem like the type with outrageous goals that needed to be brought down to Earth, so what was he doing here with Louis?

"Alex." The word startled Louis, he had started to think no reply would come his way at all. No surname was offered, and Louis did not press for one.

"Well Alex, I'm here to talk to you about different career choices that would be most suited for you. You don't have to decide now, but you should start thinking about these sorts of things." The words sounded empty, like a dentist asking a patient how their day went while both sides knew they couldn't care less.

Alex looked as if he was struggling to hide a smile, or more likely a smirk, but he nodded regardless and continued to focus his attention on Louis.

Louis decided to start out with asking a basic question; "What do you see yourself doing in, say, fifteen years?" Many of the children would shrug and claim they didn't know, so he expected the same of Alex.

After a few moments of concentration, Alex replied, "Somewhere I don't want to be."

Louis blinked. That was a first. Not only was it vague, but also a bleak outlook. Not the type of response he got at all. Alex hadn't had a ridiculous hope, but he also hadn't flat out said he had no ideas. In contrast, he implied he did have an idea where he would be.

Reclaiming his composure, Louis cleared his throat and brought himself from his thoughts, deciding to skip over the first answers' prodding and nudging. That was what he typically did after asking each question. "Alright, and what sort of activities or hobbies are you interested in?" came the next question.

Again, several seconds ticked by before the response. "I enjoy biking. It's been helpful multiple times, along with swimming. Mostly staying underwater without breathing for long periods of time. Snowboarding has helped me out of a tight spot once, so that too." Alex had looked at Louis the entire time, his brown eyes never straying from Louis' shock-filled blue ones.

What sort of reply was that? This teenager had managed to answer Louis' question, yet somehow remained just as intangible and unrelatable as before. He had answered a question about himself and Louis still felt no closer to knowing or understanding the strange boy. Maybe it was the impassive tone, or the fact that he described the things he enjoyed as useful more than fun or personally entertaining, but Louis felt that this kid was abnormal. Not to mention Alex had yet to break eye contact, and Louis was becoming increasingly nervous.

In the end, it was Louis who broke the stare-down by looking at the papers and pamphlets on his desk to avoid meeting Alex's piercing eyes any longer. He tried to cover it up by pretending to organize the scattered papers, but he knew there was no way Alex was fooled.

Deciding another question might diffuse the awkward tension that had been building since Alex walked through his doorway, Louis asked, "What are your talents?"

Alex's face began to look somewhat grim, but in the long minutes Louis had observed him he had realized the teen never had any full emotion. It was always in fractions or percents, never giving too much of his real feelings away. Never enough of the inner mental state was displayed for anyone to truly see what was going on inside. Even now, Louis wondered if the somber emotion was real or false.

Then the response came, "I've been told I have a lot of talents. I know multiple languages, and I'm practiced in karate. I have been described as brave, observant, and resourceful, along with curious. Perhaps too curious." Here his voice began to falter, losing its emptiness as trickles of emotion came in on some of the words, "Honestly, I don't really care. I wish I didn't have any of these talents. All they do if get me into trouble." Alex had looked down at his feet during the revelation, but now brought his head back up to meet Louis'. "I wish I didn't have any talents. I wish I was as normal as possible."

If Louis had been unprepared for the previous responses, he was hypnotized by the sudden revelation. Yet Alex continued to stare at him, his face as blank as when he first walked in. All the feeling had been scrubbed off, leaving his face a clean human slate.

Again, Louis opted to ignore the strange reply. He had no way to respond. What could he possibly say?

"What kind of career do you want, Alex?" Louis said quietly, kindness leaking into his voice. How he could care for a boy he had hardly spoken to, he didn't know, but something about Alex drew him in. He found himself wanting to help in some way.

Some form of compassion touched the edges of Alex's face. His eyes were filled with empathy, his lips curved upward slightly in a mock smile. "I don't think I'm going to have a choice, Mr. Faure."

Louis was startled by the flow of pure pity directed at him by someone a fraction of his age combined the sudden use of his name in such a formal manner. Every minute he spent with this boy brought a new surprise.

Alex stood up, pushing the chair he had been sitting in backwards slightly. "I'm sorry, I should get back to class. I've missed a lot of school lately already," he explained and turned to the door.

Thrown by the self-excusal, Louis didn't respond until Alex was halfway out the door. "Alex!" he called, stopping the boy for a moment. He look that as a sign to continue. "No one is normal. That doesn't mean we can't make our own choices." Louis found himself believing the words. Not trying to fool or con a child for the first time many years, but genuinely trusting the advice he was giving. "No one had the right to tell you what to do with your life, with your skills. They can help you, but it will always remain your choice."

How had it taken him this long to realize that? Why hadn't he known it all along?

Alex was still frozen with one foot in the hallway and one in Louis' makeshift office. The world seemed to pause for a long time while nothing moved but thoughts and emotions. Then the back of his blond head bobbed once, uttering, "Thank you," before Alex had walked out the door and it swung shut behind him with a heavy thud.

|~V~|

_A/N Also, I do not in any way share Louis' original view on schools (they are certainly not sheltering) or on kids and their aspirations. Frankly, I kind of hate him for thinking that way. He got better though, right?_

_Anyway, tell me what you think! If you have any comments, complaints, concerns, corrections, or confusions please tell me so that I may remedy them and we can all be happy._


	2. Chapter 2

_A/N: Sorry it took a while. Hopefully the next chapter will be quicker, but no promises. I suck at commitment._

_Minor language warning because Tom._

|~V~|

"I hate assemblies," muttered Alex under his breath.

Tom heard though, as he was sitting right next to Alex on the uncomfortable bleacher benches, and gave a quiet snort in acknowledgment. "We all do, Alex. But hey, at least we get to miss half of Government."

There was a hum of assent from Alex's direction as the noise level began to pick up. Honestly, it was to be expected with a school-full of high school students cramped into a gym, but _god_ were they loud. Maybe they shouldn't have allowed themselves to be ushered into the middle of the seating; the noise was probably quieter near the back or a bit closer to the aisle. Alex had the right idea to try to resist being placed here, but Ms. Bedfordshire had none of it and shooed them along with the rest of their classmates.

The bleacher floor under Tom's ratty sneakers started to quiver. He spared a glance at Alex and saw his friend was anxiously tapping his foot in a staccato rhythm. Not that Alex looked anxious; in fact, Alex had an expression of vague boredom and disinterest, like he always did. The action itself gave away the fact that he was uncomfortable.

Since Alex had gotten back, his emotions had become even more impossible to unravel. As if it hadn't been bad enough after the first couple times (or missions, as he now knew them to be), now it was a rare if nonexistent day when Alex was open with his feelings to anyone, even Tom. He didn't need a dramatic, tear-jerking heart-to-heart here, just laughing every so often or openly showing a reaction on his face.

Or a good, old fashioned, gut-spilling therapy session. Tom wasn't about to be picky, he just wanted to know his best friend's feelings again.

A screeching of a microphone brought him from his sulk. Headmaster Bray, apparently immune to the banshee shriek that had many school kids whispering curses, cleared his throat loudly over the sound system just to make sure he had their complete attention.

"Good afternoon, students!" The cheery tone of his voice did not correspond with the emotions of the student body, as no one blessed him with a good afternoon in return. He continued on uncaringly, "We have a very important announcement today about a growing problem in our school. Unfortunately, many students have not been taking their work to heart or considering future consequences of their actions today on their lives down the road." Why was he speaking so slowly, drawing out every last syllable? Maybe he just loved the sound of his own voice. "So, Mr. Kydd has offered to give you all a talk about academic dishonesty."

Tom resisted the urge to burst out laughing, but it was a near thing. Really, a few kids cheating on a test or copying their papers from the internet were not cause for a school-wide assembly and the assault of assembly noise on his ears.

Turning to Alex to share his thoughts and complaints with his best friends, he paused. Alex's face was pale, and his foot had stopped that annoying tapping but was now pressed against the bench. His breathing was stuttering and inconsistent, turning ragged as he struggled to take in deep breaths.

Huh. Maybe he was feeling sick or something. He _had_ looked ready to fall asleep in English earlier that day, but who wasn't ready to sleep through another interpretation of what inspired Charles Dickens.

Mr. Kydd had started his spiel using key words such as "permanent record", "college(s)", and "disappointed". Tom found it dull and increasingly repetitive as it went on and was ready to find a way to sleep sitting straight up before he had to hear "you won't get away with it" one more time.

This was almost not worth missing Government, even if they were learning about how great and special of an idea Parliament had been. Again.

It seemed the rest of the students agreed that this was too boring to endure and had resumed their previous talking, though at a lower level so as not to get caught. A few girls behind him had started arguing about their standings on the basketball team and had gotten shushed by a teacher keeping watch from the aisle, so the noise limit in their area had been set. It was not a very high limit though, as the noise around them started to increase and no one was reprimanded.

Well, if everyone else could do it, so could he. Tom turned to Alex to ask some questions about football practice while resolving to stay quieter than those around him so if someone ended up in trouble, it wasn't them.

Except Alex, with wide eyes and arms wrapped around his torso, looked like he had seen a ghost. One who had then stabbed him and let all his blood drain onto the floor and then had apparently dumped a body of ice water on him because his friend's skin was clammy and his entire body was shivering.

"Woah, are you all right? You look sick." Intelligent observation by the one and only Tom Harris, but he couldn't help it. Sometimes when he was worried his mouth developed a mind of its own, and not a very logical or sensible one.

Thankfully, Alex didn't seem to notice his best friend's idiocy and simply nodded shakily. "I'm fine. I just feel like I might faint. Or throw up. Best find a better place to do that than a cramped school assembly though." He abruptly stood up and walked toward the aisle, paying no mind to the shoes and feet that failed to get out of his way in time.

When he reached the stairs leading down to the exits Ms. Bedfordshire tried to stop him with a caring hand on his shoulder. Alex didn't have the time to explain to her as he avoided her gaze and walked quickly to the bottom of the steps, her hand slipping off as he made his getaway.

Tom watched his friend's decent with a mixture of shock and fear. What could make Alex run out like that? Was it some sort of spy thing? Was Mr. Kydd part of a terrorist organization that infiltrated schools and corrupted children all while under the pretense of enforcing academic honesty?

Probably not, considering that was the stupidest plan _Tom_ had ever heard of, and he wasn't even a criminal mastermind.

If this was somehow a spy thing, then Tom should stay out of his friend's way and let him get on with it. Maybe cover for him if a teacher got nosy, say Alex felt sick and had to use the restroom or whatever.

But while Tom might not have the gut instincts Alex was born with, he did have a deep loyalty and knowledge of his best friend, and that look of panic on his paled face told Tom that this was a lot more than a spy thing. For Tom, this looked to be a my-best-friend-needs-me thing, whether the best friend in question knew it or not.

So Tom got up and exited over the feet of disgruntled peers, taking more care than Alex had not to step on their feet in his depart from the land of academic honesty and noisy assemblies. Ms. Bedfordshire gave him a look that told him she was not happy with this situation, but that she was worried about Alex. He took that as permission to scamper down the steps and search for his best friend in need.

Of course, being delayed and having a best friend as a spy makes said friend very hard to find. After five minutes of running through the eerily silent halls to Alex's locker, the boys bathroom, and their History room he was struck with brilliance. Well, to be honest that must have happened at his birth, but now he had an extra wave of it because he knew exactly where Alex was.

Tom ran down a flight of stairs and prayed he wouldn't slip and break his leg or fall flat on his face in his mad rush. Then he flew down the hall to the place he and Alex had hid the first week of high school when Tom was being chased down by a group of (possibly drugged 'til high) upperclassmen: the janitor's closet.

Ah, memories. They had spent a good two hours in that closet, which was a surprisingly pleasant time. The closet was spacious enough for both of them to sit comfortably and smelled like lemony wood polish.

If Alex was running off to hide somewhere in the school, this was where he would go.

Stumbling to the door in his haste, it occurred to Tom last-second that he should knock before barging in. If he startled Alex when he was vulnerable. . . well the last time he ended up with his nose squashed into the ground before he knew what hit him, not that he would admit it.

After three loud knocks Tom opened the door and was pleased to find it wasn't locked. He was hopeless at anything remotely sneaky, including picking locks, which was why he had Alex.

All the smugness drained from him when he saw Alex with his back pressed against the corner and his knees curled up to his chest. He had also wrapped his arms around the legs tucked up to him and had ducked his face down to his knees.

Tom gently closed the door behind him and sat right next to his best friend. With the door closed, all the light had been shut out and he could barely make out the dark shapes of cleaning supplies surrounding him, but he could see the way Alex flinched away from where their arms brushed in the close proximity. Tom bit his lip and tried not to cringe from the guilt; it would get him nowhere right now.

Right now he just needed to be there for his best friend.

"You know, you can always talk to me. I mean, about your spy problems. And of course your other problems too, I just—" wow his rambling was not helping, "What I'm trying to say is that I know about the spy thing now, so you can talk to me about it. And, as your best friend, I will listen and not make fun of you," he finished magnanimously.

Alex stayed hunched in his fetal position, but he also didn't tell Tom to shut up, which he took as his cue to continue.

"You probably can't talk to Jack. She loves you and would listen and support you of course," no need to make Alex feel any worse about this, "but as your guardian she'll feel like she has to do something about it. To make it better for you. Knowing Jack, she might just run up to MI6 headquarters and tell them off."

He could see Jack, her face turning as red as her hair as she shouts off at a few of the most powerful people in Britain for making her charge upset. She was just about impulsive enough to try, even if there was no way it would end well.

There was a small noise from where Alex's face must have been, but whether is was a snort of amusement, a sniffle, or even if it existed outside Tom's imagination, he couldn't say.

"C'mon, Alex. You can't flip out on me and not say anything. I'm pretty sure it's not healthy behavior to run out of a school assembly full-speed and hide in a closet. Especially when the assembly was on something as important as academic dishonesty,"

Okay, that was definitely a snicker. Tom Harris: Child Spy/Best Friend Whisperer. He was totally getting that on a business card. Maybe he'd mail it to MI6.

They must have sat in that cramped janitor's closet for at least ten minutes, Tom making bad and almost-offensive jokes in between comforting his best friend, before Alex's head fully emerged. Tom couldn't tell whether he had been crying or not in the darkness if the closet, though his eyes adjusted just enough to tell that is he stood up straight his messy black hair would become a stringy white mop.

Somehow, he found he didn't care— about whether Alex cried or not or whether he became a mop-head.

The sounds of Alex's deep, steady breaths was the first thing to make him realize he hadn't heard Alex breathing until now. He also unclenched his hands from where they had been wrapped around his curled legs and was mindlessly rubbing the left side of his chest, about where his heart must be.

"Sorry I ran out. I'm not sure what it was, but all those people surrounding me and then all the noise. I couldn't handle it, I guess. I felt constricted, like something was squeezing my heart, which was beating out of my chest, and I was so sure something horrible was going to happen.

"I want to tell you about the missions Tom, really. It's just. . . I'm not sure how much I'm allowed to say about it."

A fact from the various spy movies and crime shows Tom had seen over the years drifted to the front of his mind. "I think you're allowed to say what happened as long as you don't use any names of specifics." Alex still looked doubtful, so Tom pressed on. "Anyway, it's not like I would say anything or that anyone would believe me if I did. So if it helps, you can talk to me. I always go to you when my parent's divorce gets bad. You should be able to do the same and talk to me about this."

Alex sighed, his thumb tracing a line over his chest. The exhale sounded relaxing, almost like a release. "Okay. Besides, I can't go back to Government class looking like this now, can I?"

He must have been referring to the evidence of tears on his face, but Tom couldn't see anything in the dark so he just agreed. Impromptu therapy sessions in the janitor's closet were much more important than Parliament in Tom's opinion.

"You already know what happened with— well, after I left you and Jerry. I don't think I'm ready to go into details about that, or that I'm allowed to even try. So let's leave that story for another time.

"After that I was in the hospital with 'Appendicitis' where I ended up with my next mission after some guys attacked me. Er, that is, they weren't really after me; they were after my roommate, but I fought them off. I messed them up pretty badly, and they got pissed." Here a bitter, mocking look came across his face. "Poor Steel Watch, Spectacles, Silver Tooth, and Combat Jacket.

"Later they came after me, locked me in an abandoned building and threatened to cut my fingers off. Once they realized I wasn't the guy they were looking for, they set the place on fire, which sucked, but I got out okay."

Alex hunched in on himself at the memories, however toned down and made casual they were made to sound. Maybe making everything sound easier and funnier than the reality of it was his friend's way of coping.

"Somehow I ended up in space." Tom started at that, not at all prepared for that sort of jump. "I mean, frigging space? Loads of kids dream about doing it, becoming astronauts or whatever. I guess a lot of kids dream about being spies, too. It sucks, by the way. Being a spy and/or going into space. Kids are idiots.

"So naturally when I came back down I crash-landed in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Australia. Their version of the SAS, the ASIS, picked me up. But of course, instead of dropping me off back home, they want me to do a bloody mission for _them_." He snorted bitterly.

His voice grew softer as he said, "I guess it's my own fault for agreeing. They had my godfather working for them. I wanted to learn more about my parents, and I thought if I went on the mission with him he could tell me. It was successful, of course, but he betrayed me. Tom, he was working for Sn— the people we were up against." Right, no names. Tom was better off not knowing anyway, he might let something slip. "He was a traitor and he fooled me. The ASIS knew the whole time and sent me with him anyway, but I was so caught up with learning about my parents that I—" Alex choked and had to clear his throat before he could continue. The story's volume had risen in anger, but now dropped back down to almost mum.

"He killed them, Tom. Set the bomb that took out the plane. My mum and my dad— his own best friend."

Alex stopped and even though Tom couldn't see him, he could picture the silent tears on his friend's face based on the way his voice cracked.

"I could have had parents. Real ones, not just a picture in a frame of people I can't remember. Who knows, maybe they would driven me to football practice and come to all those stupid school awards ceremonies. Ian was normally on 'business trips', so maybe my dad wouldn't have been able to come anyway." There was a tense pause before he closed the thought. "Useless spies, the lot of them. Us.

"But I would have liked to know, one way or the other. I was so close to having that life, and now I know why I didn't. And now I can't tell if this, this _knowing_, is better or worse.

"This life sucks," Alex finished in a soft voice.

They sat silently in the dark of the janitor's closet; Tom's arse went numb at some point from the linoleum floor and his eyes _still_ hadn't fully adjusted.

Maybe he was supposed to say something, but her couldn't think of anything right to say other than "That sucks mate" which his gut told him was a big no-no for a grieving friend. It was okay though; the silence felt right, somehow.

Eventually the final bell rung, signaling the end of Government. It almost made both of them jump out of their skin, and Tom fatefully half-stood because he was so startled and ended up with a hair full of mop. Damp, pasty mop.

He shrieked and jumped away, disappointed but not surprised with himself for forgetting the mop was their but freely angry with Alex for cracking up at his yell of fear. Some best friend, laughing at his misery. This, after Tom had listened to all his sucky spy-life problems.

Now that he was standing and the feeling of life was returning to his arse, he offered a hand to help Alex up. Sure, his best friend was some crazy teenaged super-spy, but that didn't mean he couldn't use a hand to help him up off the ground like anyone else.

A hand clasped his and he pulled his friend up, resulting in them both crouching uncomfortably as they made their way past rolling mop buckets and caution floor signs. Tom stubbed his toe on every last one, but Alex somehow managed to avoid them all. Bloody spies.

The glaring light of the hallway left Tom blinking stupidly before Alex joined him outside the closet. Most of the kids had already left for their class and they were probably going to be late for Physics.

His thoughts were interrupted when Alex said, "Hey, Tom. Thanks for, you know, listening to me rant."

Tom grinned. "No problem. Maybe next time you can rant about the rest of your missions against evil and I'll offer unhelpful opinions."

The late bell rang, helpfully informing them they had three minutes to get down a hall and up a flight of stairs. Alex smirked at him and taunted, "I'll race you," and ran off with Tom rushing after him and shouting about him cheating.

|~V~|

_A/N: Well there we are. If you have any comments, complaints, concerns, corrections, or confusions, leave a review so i can fix it and we can skip with joy._


	3. Chapter 3

Since he started karate nine years ago, Alex Rider rarely missed a lesson.

Naturally there were times he couldn't make it due to vacations with his uncle, but Nessa could always count on being contacted a month in advance. There was perhaps one occasion where he had fallen ill and that was the extent of it.

Or at least it had been, until Ian Rider had died.

Everyone went through a grieving process and it was understandable that Alex would miss lessons. People coped with loss in different ways, and while some adults Nessa knew and trained dealt with their problems through physical exercise, teenagers and children tended to curl in on themselves and shut the world out. It was perfectly natural for a young boy such as Alex to stop participating in a sport while grieving.

It was unusual that he should show up again a month laterand act as he always had, right back to coming to every lesson.

His behavior was the same, he went over the katas and exercises as he always had done, and though he may not have been as open or cheerful as before it was not something one would notice unless they looked for it. He hid it well.

In the current lesson, as she watched him go through his warm-ups with the other students and review the katas after yet another long absence—this one far longer than the others—he was acting as if he had never been gone. The students welcomed him back, just as she had trained them to do, and did not give him so much as a second glance.

This time, Nessa had enough. Alex had been gone for too long and she was past being just worried. Every lengthy absence had been longer than the last, but last time it was too much.

Turning her back on Alex to help one of the newer brown belts with his hook kick, she pushed the matter of her most mysterious student out of her mind. For the time being, anyway.

The lesson proceeded as normal, Alex fitting in with the rest of the class like he always had.

Nessa kept him in the corner of her eye the whole time and made a list of everything slightly out of place. His upper-cuts were higher than before—she had taught all her students to aim two inches past their own chin height, but his fists were reaching almost to his eyes and extending past a comfortable distance. To someone with less experience with students who never practiced, they might think it could just be from lack of recent training. Nessa, however, knew that the muscle memory should snap back.

No, this was as if he had been practicing his upper-cuts on someone much taller than him.

His kicks were faster as well. Alex's kicks had always been one of his strengths in karate because of the force he could pack behind them and their accuracy. They had never been particularly slow, but now they were impressively quick as well as precise.

Last, Nessa noticed his eyes. All of her students had been taught how to keep their peripheral vision open at all times, to see all sides for any unsuspecting attackers, but Alex had the skill down to an art. Even when he was focusing on perfecting a stance, she could see him angle himself in front of the the mirror so he could see everyone behind him.

Sometimes he would turn his head halfway to glance behind himself, as if someone truly would sneak up behind him inside her dojo in an unregulated attack. It almost hurt her pride to think that anyone wouldn't trust her students to not strike a fellow trainee when their back was turned, but Alex knew better than most people the rules of the dojo from all his time spent there. He couldn't actually think someone would hurt him here. The action of constantly looking over his shoulder seemed to be innate.

It was not, though. Nessa would have noticed it nine years before if it had been. There was something recent that must have caused a deep level of mistrust in him. Not simply a broken promise or horrid lie, that would cause and emotional reaction and emotionally, Alex acted the same as ever. Someone had betrayed him physically, and now he couldn't trust anyone with his back.

Practice continued and other students came for help with their moves or forgotten sections of katas. One of her older students, a sixteen year old girl who had been a black belt for many years, was acting as her second-in-command. With the simpler questions and easier fixes she perfected the younger students while Nessa could focus on the more extreme problems.

If Alex showed up more consistently, Nessa was planning on making him one of the official leaders of the class as well. He used to help out the junior's class all the time, and he had been at the dojo longer than most.

After he finished a kata with a bow he turned to the person he preformed it with, a brown belt who had been struggling with the footwork of Chintō kata. Demonstrating the feet himself he showed her how to distribute the weight, gently poking one of her feet with his toe until she got it. Then he gave her an encouraging grin, which she returned, and let her practice the kata on her own.

Nessa deferred the student she was currently helping to her second-in-command and made her way over. "Alex!" she called out, getting his attention and watching as he made his way past the other pupils.

"Hello, Sensei," he replied, giving her a small, formal bow.

Nessa knew she had to talk to him, but she had no idea how to bring up the topic that she actually needed to get to. Best to start off safe. "I'm happy you have returned to lessons. We can always use the extra help, and you are very fun to teach."

That won her a small, but genuine, smile. "I like helping out. Teaching the other kids is fun, I don't mind it at all."

With a short nod, she continued with her original train of thought. "Have you kept up with practice while you were away?" She carefully left of why she asked the question, wanting to see if Alex would come up with an innocent reason of her wanting to make sure he kept up with training, or the real reason of how his fighting style had changed.

Alex broke eye contact for a moment and glanced in the mirror on the other side of the dojo. "No, not really. I've been busy."

It had to be a lie, there was no way his fighting could change that much in the time he was gone without him practicing. Kicks don't get faster by themselves, otherwise her lazier students would be much better than they were. Though, the way he said it, his lie sounded so much like the truth. As if he himself believed it.

Instead of dancing around the topic, she shattered it with a staff. "Your upper-cuts are higher than they used to be. I thought I taught you to pick on someone your own size. Unless you were planning on punching your attacker in the eye, in which case you should go with a back-fist and not an upper-cut."

Alex looked shocked for a tenth of a second, and if Nessa hadn't been training to notice every detail she would have missed it. As it were, she simply wondered if she imagined it when Alex quickly slipped into a grin. One nothing like the tiny smiles he gave when he was actually proud or happy about something. The grin looked more false than a straight punch aimed from ten feet away. "I'm sorry, I hadn't noticed. I'll work on fixing that, Sensei."

He was leading her off topic again, pretending his slip-up in his upper-cuts had nothing to do with his absence when all logic pointed to exactly that.

"What I'm wondering, Alex, is how your upper-cuts went from being near perfect to this without you practicing them differently," she asked, effectively pinning him and trying not to feel guilty about it. Perhaps she should leave it alone, but he was her pupil and as long as he was in her dojo he was Nessa's responsibility. That meant she had to ask questions better left alone; she had to protect her students and look out for them.

Alex, to his credit, didn't look angry or defensive. His face fell, looking like a sad, lost child. Nessa rarely considered the kids she taught actual children, especially not when they were second degree junior black belts, but now she was harshly reminded that Alex was also just a fourteen year old boy.

He didn't answer her question, wouldn't meet her eyes, and that told her all she needed to know. Whatever situation Alex was in where he had to fight people taller than him constantly, it was not something he could tell her about, no matter how much he might want to. In addition to that, he respected her enough not to come up with a half-hearted lie on the spot and then make a break for it.

Nessa could appreciate that, at least.

"Look Alex, I understand if you can't tell me," she began. His eyes flicked up to meet hers and another flash of surprise flitted across his face, faster than a back-fist. "I probably couldn't do anything for you even if you did tell me." If Alex thought there was nothing she could do to help him out of this serious situation, he was probably right. He was a very smart boy. "Just keep in mind that if you ever do need me, for any reason, I'm here. You can come to me and I'll do whatever is within my power to help you."

Alex was meeting her eyes fully now, scarcely blinking without the faintest trace of wanting to look away like before.

"Thank you, Sensei," he said, giving her another small smile she loved because of how real it felt.

After retuning the smile, she switched over to fake-glowering at him "Oh, and Alex. I hope you can make it to more lessons, or you'll never become an official assistant." Despite everything, Alex seemed to genuinely like helping the younger students and he was good at it. He would make a wonderful assistant.

Beaming at her, he nodded and gave a parting bow which she returned. "I'll try not to miss any more, Sensei."

That was all Nessa could ask for.

|~V~|

_A/N: Okay, so it was helpfully pointed out to me by The-Wasteland-Renegade that Sensei is not spelled Sensi and the internet lies. I mean, my instructor spells it Sensie but I think he's just having us on and probably laughs himself to sleep about it. Either way, it's now fixed. If you guys have any other comments, complaints, concerns, corrections, or confusions, leave a review so that I can improve my writing and you don't have to bang your head against a wall over simple errors._


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